It was once one of the biggest players in the game, and when AOL merged with the huge Time Warner to create Time Warner AOL, it was thought they’d go from strength to strength. It didn’t happen however, and the AOL affair with Time Warner is about to come to an end, with AOL having dropped in value at alarming rate.
At the time of the merger eight years ago AOL merged with Time Warner for a figure in the region of $124 billion.
AOL’s value now? Just $6 billion. According to recent estimates that puts the once great Internet giant at half of the value of Facebook. That figure comes after an agreement this last week by Digital Sky Technologies to buy 1.96% of Facebook for $200 million.
AOL’s value when compared with Google is even worse as the American ISP is worth an estimated 5% of Google’s net worth of around $129.7 billion.
Google of course has a 5% stake in AOL (as it has in most things) which it believes is worth $274 million, which would put AOL’s worth at $5.5 billion.
Whatever its true worth, it’s a sad day for AOL.
